The presentation at Paris Photo 2025 of Jan Robert Leegte centers around two interconnected bodies of work: Wanderer is an autonomous, digital flâneur, a internet-based entity that traverses the physical world through a continuous sequence of directional choices. These decisions are recorded immutably on the blockchain and visualised through web-based map services.
Follow the 'Wanderer' here
https://wanderer.leegte.org/
Jan Robert Leegte
Wanderer, 2025
Dual channel net art piece, custom server, software, crypto wallet
dimension variable
Unique
28.000,00 EUR
(incl. VAT)
Jan Robert Leegte
Ornament No.8, 2025
acrylic paint plotted on oak panel
80 x 60 x 1 cm
Unique
5.800,00 EUR
(incl. VAT)
In dialogue with Wanderer, Ornaments present a new material iteration of Leegte’s long-standing investigation into digital ornamentation. This series consists of paint- on-wood-panel plotter works, each based on generative algorithms that produce complex bevelling structures, referencing both the aesthetics of GUI design and the architectural ornament.
Jan Robert Leegte
Ornament No.3, 2025
acrylic paint plotted on oak panel
80 x 60 x 1 cm
Unique
5.800,00 EUR
(incl. VAT)
Jan Robert Leegte
Ornament No.6, 2025
acrylic paint plotted on oak panel
80 x 60 x 1 cm
Unique
5.800,00 EUR
(incl. VAT)
The Ornament panels will be installed as an environment surrounding Wanderer, evoking a scenography in which generative ornamentation becomes both backdrop and structural frame for the algorithmic dérive.
Jan Robert Leegte
Ornament No.9, 2025
acrylic paint plotted on oak panel
80 x 60 x 1 cm
Unique
5.800,00 EUR
(incl. VAT)
Jan Robert Leegte
Ornament No.4, 2025
acrylic paint plotted on oak panel
80 x 60 x 1 cm
Unique
5.800,00 EUR
(incl. VAT)
Jan Robert Leegte
Ornament No.7, 2025
acrylic paint plotted on oak panel
80 x 60 x 1 cm
Unique
5.800,00 EUR
(incl. VAT)
Jan Robert Leegte
Ornament No.10, 2025
acrylic paint plotted on oak panel
80 x 60 x 1 cm
Unique
5.800,00 EUR
(incl. VAT)
Jan Robert Leegte
Ornament No.5, 2025
Together, Wanderer and Ornament form a spatial and conceptual installation that speaks to contemporary conditions of movement, memory, autonomy, and interface. The works complement one another in media, gesture, and art historical resonance — offering a dynamic, multi-sensory experience for Paris Photo visitors that bridges the immaterial logic of blockchain with the physical intimacy of paint and wood.
Jan Robert Leegte
JPEG 1 0×98a82bef03df6f4e58, 2025
ChromaLuxe print in aluminium frame
65 x 65 cm
4.800,00 EUR
(incl. VAT)
JPEG, 2022/2025
Since the early 90s, compression has been the driving force behind the image-based internet. Without compression, there would be no Netscape, social media, NFTs, or AI-generated images. JPEG compression has specifically enabled photography-based imagery on the net. It has always served that purpose, and over time became the default for showing high-quality images online. Nevertheless, compression always leaves a trace, which has become the slightly distorted lens through which the network sees the world of uploaded images.
The works from the JPEG series try to create an image programmatically fully expressing that signature compression. An image that is made from barely nothing, yet fully present in its blazing appearance. A work deeply material, expressing itself through the language of code and codec transferred to a plate of aluminum. This is not a JPEG depicting an image. The JPEG is the image itself.
Where abstract expressionists cut out the depiction in painting, attempting to make the artist convey pure emotion, JPEG cuts out the artist’s emotion and lets it emerge from within the algorithm.
www.jpeg.leegte.org
Jan Robert Leegte
JPEG 0xe4394bef3ec9b29a71, 2025
ChromaLuxe print in aluminium frame
80 x 65 cm
5.500,00 EUR
(incl. VAT)
about Jan Robert Leegte
Jan Robert Leegte’s work has been exhibited internationally such as Whitechapel Gallery London, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, van Gogh Museum Amsterdam, ZKM Karlsruhe, Centre Pompidou Paris, Museum Ludwig Budapest and more.
More information about the artist here
